The Fence : A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide

The Boston police officers who brutally beat Michael Cox at a deserted fence one icy night in 1995 knew soon after that they had made a terrible mistake. The badge and handgun under Cox's bloodied parka proved he was not a black gang member but a plainclothes cop chasing the same murder suspect his assailants were. Officer Kenny Conley, who pursued and apprehended the suspect while Cox was being beaten, was then wrongfully convicted by federal prosecutors of lying when he denied witnessing the attack on his brother officer. Both Cox and Conley were native Bostonians, each dedicating his life to service with the Boston Police Department. But when they needed its support, they were heartlessly and ruthlessly abandoned. A remarkable work of investigative journalism, The Fence tells the shocking true story of the attack and its aftermath—and exposes the lies and injustice hidden behind a "blue wall of silence."

The Boston police officers who brutally beat Michael Cox at a deserted fence one icy night in 1995 knew soon after that they had made a terrible mistake. The badge and handgun under Cox's bloodied parka proved he was not a black gang member but a plainclothes cop chasing the same murder suspect his assailants were. Officer Kenny Conley, who pursued and apprehended the suspect while Cox was being beaten, was then wrongfully convicted by federal prosecutors of lying when he denied witnessing the attack on his brother officer. Both Cox and Conley were native Bostonians, each dedicating his life to service with the Boston Police Department. But when they needed its support, they were heartlessly and ruthlessly abandoned.

A remarkable work of investigative journalism, The Fence tells the shocking true story of the attack and its aftermath-and exposes the lies and injustice hidden behind a blue wall of silence.

“A monumental account of an urban travesty....[It] has all the earmarks of a classic.” —Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River and Shutter Island Dick Lehr’s The Fence, subtitled, “A Police Cover-up Along Boston’s Racial Divide,” is a shocking true story of racism, brutality, official lies and negligence, when the truth about the savage beating of black plainclothes policeman by white officers was hidden behind a “blue wall of silence.” Respected journalist Lehr, winner of the Hancock Award, the Loeb Award, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and bestselling author of Black Mass and Judgment Ridge, sheds a brilliant light on all aspects of this powerful, disturbing event and its aftermath. Provides an account of the beating of Michael Cox by Boston police officers in 1995 who did not realize Cox was a plainclothes officer in pursuit of the same murder suspect they were chasing, discusses how the incident showcased the racial divide within the ranks of the police department, and examines the repercussions of the episode on everyone involved A gritty and riveting, true-life tale of violence, race, and injustice within the ranks of the Boston police department.